Would you invest the Post Office? Sales volume and revenue has shrunk, and it lost $15 billion last year. But if you’re an American taxpayer, you own it. Economics editor David Wessel reports.

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... you read ... the post office sales volume and revenue has shrunk ... in the last fifteen billion last year ... you're an American taxpayer you own a ... Economics Editor David Wessel joins MoneyBeat talk about the post office problems ... past present and future given how are you ... the area ... Amari so I e I'm a taxpayer I on the post office ... and solid rate investment these days though ... well I think that's right the problem is that the we address the post office to the kind of like a business ... in the sense that they are supposed to ... make enough money by selling stamps to pay their way ... but we've also treated them like a government agency in every time they wanna make some big change ... whether it's out pulling out of the federal government employee health plan or making their retirees' go on Medicare or going from six the five day week let electric ... car causing a post op this ... that this Congress senses as well we did mean for you to be that much like a private company ... so they're caught in this buys ... at a time ... when there's this is extraordinarily disruptive technology turn their business in sight now ... E-mail is obviously replacing snail mail and it's happening faster than they hadn't is it the photo into my home is that ... they do have some things that they can capitalize in order to try to turn around the business ... right so you look at it and being operation there it's sixty five billion dollars a year ... that's would make it Number forty five on the Fortune five hundred lives ... and they do have some assets one is ... that ... they have the brands are recognizable brand ... second these ... people to trust the money people put very personal stuff in the mail ... and they assume it's time to get to where it's going to need some no one's been reading on the way ... as we've learned the last two weeks' ... wages of the electronically apparently you can't have anymore ... and third they have this incredibly dances strong network ... of delivery they're the only operation in the whole country ... it delivers five or six days a week to every business in every home ... and that's why ... about a billion package is the year they going to the FedEx and UPS cream actually end up being delivered by ... your friendly ... letter care because they are places where FedEx and ups don't want to go ... write but ... didn't really have to cut some that business to come after ... it can happily awesome people write the more than a half ... well I'm ... I know but alas they may drift in payrolls are actually shrinking because of a very old workforce and are losing a lot by attrition but you're the location of your question is they have to go through a radical restructuring for their their bills for more to handle more male than areas ... there are parts of their business that they probably should just get out of land contracted out it's not clear that you need ... U S government owns ... mail sorting facilities a lot of mail comes pre sorted maybe they can contact them out ... on the half to figure out how to its loyal that last mile delivery network ... and what kind of electronic businesses might they be able to be ... a unique provider ... as I point out column in your app ... I know that bastion of socialism ... they've largely privatized post offices or free them to do all sorts of things in our post office doesn't ... security mail or you mail something in paper is delivered by email or vice versa ... so there's a lot of firm and a lot of suggestions about what the postal service to do ... but it's completely prevented doing that by this ... really bad gridlock in Washington the unions don't wanna lose jobs to dominoes don't want me to go up the congressmen Don't one post office to close in UPS and FedEx when the postal service to stick to things the ups and FedEx don't wanna do ... so you can see this terrible combination ... disruptive technology ... broken ... business model political gridlock some we'll give it some point ... I don't think some of the